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Battery advice for a non-technical pilot, please.

Drbgaijin

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The basic question is very simple: How can I check the health of my batteries.

The expanded question: I now have 6 batteries for my latest Anafi. The oldest batteries are over 2 years old. I avoid flying with them, but use them when I want to check some functions in Freeflight , without actually taking off.
That leaves me with 4 batteries ranging from new to quite new.
I have read Parrot's advice on battery care a few times.
However, I wonder if there is a simple "test" I can do on the batteries that could indicate their health levels.
I am completely non-technical when it comes to electronics.
I have a simple multimeter here.
I have no intention of buying some high-tech instrument that I need a degree in electronics to make use of.
Can anyone tell me, in layman's terms, if there are any ways of judging how healthy the batteries are?

I can add that nowadays I aim on bringing the Anafi home when I see that the battery level has dropped to 50%.
Using my four batteries, that gives me about 1 hour total flight time.

Thank you in advance for some practical advice on battery health checks!
Regards
Douglas
 
Using the Show Anafi Log Project program you can open that up. Click on Tools at the top left. It will have a option to open "Meta data from FDR Log" That is the Bin file saved to your CDcard. The file should show the last battery used. You will be able to check by the serial number. It will also show you the number of cycle counts that battery has been charged. Right under that it will show the batteries health (Total Capacity)
Here is a picture of my oldest battery. It has been charged 57 times. The Total battery capacity is 96%.
There is no way to tell what condition each cell is in.
Anafi Battery 4.png
 
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Total capacity can also been seen in FF6 in the Drone window, under the map (last position) - scroll up past the other info to get to the Maximum Battery Capacity.
 
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seems this only works on windows not mac?

You can see the battery serial number, cycle count and soh (state of health) if you open a log.bin file in a hex editor, in the first few lines of the file.

As well as the Show Anafi Log Project program I also use the free Notepad++ with Hex plugin (H circled in red), and I'm sure something similar would be available on a Mac.

Log_bin_example.JPG
 
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Store at ~50%.
Fully charge before flying.
Check maximum capacity before flying.
 
Yes, about that:
The capacity in the FF6 is changing from charge to charge, sometimes.
I saw 91%, 96%, 93%, 91%. One battery of course!
How is the reading in the .bin file?

And do we really think that this numbers are telling anything, if obviously not even the fw of the bird can (falling down with 10+, 20+, 40+, ....%) work "failsafe" with them?

My thought about this was: as older, as less reliable is (the bird in handling) the battery (stats)
Just with new (Or just refurbished?) birds, which should come with new batteries ( Drbgaijin had one of these, I think), falling down, too, I am running out of ideas.
Is it entirely a fw (bird or battery?) problem?

The thing that points to that, is: it started (became a "regular thing") after the first update in 2020.
Just it also "killed" birds on "good" 2019 fw, later

So is it perhaps a battery aging "only" problem?
Which Parrot was/is aware of and tried to cover it up with the fw changes?
Unsuccessfully, till now?

Perhaps we should check on the serials of the batteries, with that the birds fell down ?
 
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The true method of determining a battery’s health is by measuring the internal resistance. As a battery ages dendrites form internally increasing its internal resistance, which results in increased voltage sag as current demands increase. Unfortunately there’s no easy method for the non-technical to do these measurements themselves. Some hobby grade chargers have the facility to make these measurements automatically when using non-smart LiPo’s.

I’m becoming more cynical about supposed Smart Batteries. They are certainly safer than hobby LiPo’s, but when a manufacturer ceases production of a drone and its batteries this artificially creates obsolescence. I’ve experienced this quite recently with a drone I have. The last usable battery I had died a death and there are no more stocks anywhere. Everything in this drone is high end but it is now only usable as a doorstop. Even batteries for the DJI Spark are becoming harder to find, and considering DJI ceased production over a year ago this means new batteries have been sat on the shelf for a year or more. This is one of the reasons the Anafi will be my last “off the shelf” drone and instead I’ll be continuing to build my own solutions whereby I can obtain batteries from any hobby store.

Regards

Nidge.
 
The true method of determining a battery’s health is by measuring the internal resistance. As a battery ages dendrites form internally increasing its internal resistance, which results in increased voltage sag as current demands increase. Unfortunately there’s no easy method for the non-technical to do these measurements themselves. Some hobby grade chargers have the facility to make these measurements automatically when using non-smart LiPo’s.

I’m becoming more cynical about supposed Smart Batteries. They are certainly safer than hobby LiPo’s, but when a manufacturer ceases production of a drone and its batteries this artificially creates obsolescence. I’ve experienced this quite recently with a drone I have. The last usable battery I had died a death and there are no more stocks anywhere. Everything in this drone is high end but it is now only usable as a doorstop. Even batteries for the DJI Spark are becoming harder to find, and considering DJI ceased production over a year ago this means new batteries have been sat on the shelf for a year or more. This is one of the reasons the Anafi will be my last “off the shelf” drone and instead I’ll be continuing to build my own solutions whereby I can obtain batteries from any hobby store.

Regards

Nidge.

I think you should be able to measure IR using the output terminals on the battery. Of course it is not per cell but if you have a set of batteries you can make comparative measurements to test health.
 
If you are going to compare the IR value of different Anafi batteries then it is worth knowing that the IR value will change with the state of charge and the temperature of the battery so make sure that you compare like with like.

I have been considering trying to find out what the small pins on the battery to body connector actually do using a logic analyser but I have been unable to find suitable connectors for the pins in order to make up a connection lead that I can tap into. If we knew which pins went high when the battery button was pressed we may be able to build a battery pack, without the USB connector, to run the Anafi using off the shelf batteries.
 
If you are really dedicated - get yourself a fancy RC LIPO charger which can measure IR, and then get one of them Chinese bank chargers for the Anafi which charge via the battery connector - to use the connectors.
 
................. However, I wonder if there is a simple "test" I can do on the batteries that could indicate their health levels.
I am completely non-technical when it comes to electronics.
I have a simple multimeter here.
I have no intention of buying some high-tech instrument that I need a degree in electronics to make use of.
Can anyone tell me, in layman's terms, if there are any ways of judging how healthy the batteries are?...................
Regards
Douglas
Thank you everyone for a heap of useful info. Now we seem to be drifting away from the simple laymans' advice that I was seeking. ;)
Regards
Douglas
 
I also have 6 batteries, and 3 of them come from an ‘Anafi Expanded pack’ I bought to a guy that sold its Anafi.
I remarked one of the battery of this pack gives me poor flight time, and in the menu under the map, where we have the battery capacity in FF6, this battery has the worst ‘capacity’ when compared to the others. When I charge it, I barely reach 98% at full charge...

I wanted to do a ‘simple protocol’ to test a battery that would be like :
- Start the Anafi and wait 5 minutes to get full initialization and satellites fix.
- In sport mode, climb at 100 meters then descend close to the landing position, but prior to the landing, re-climb to 100m and descend.
- Do this cycle 5 times and land.
- Check in FF6, the remaining flight time % and the battery capacity given in the startup menu when you scroll down on the drone properties icon.
- Compare the 6 batteries results.

of course the results would depend on the altitude for the take-off position, the temperature and wind or other parameters, but doing the test for the 6 batteries in a row would allow comparisons.
One of the main problem I see with the Anafi is the fact it’s a 2S battery (2 cells LiPo), and there is no way to check a vital parameter that is ‘how is one cell discharged when compared to the other’.
If we really had ‘smart batteries’ we would have this parameter in FF6 (like this can be found on DJI drones).
At full battery charge, if one of the LiPo cells is only at 60% and the other at 100%, the total voltage will be ‘Ok’, but after a short fly, it will lead to a motor cut... due to a lack in capacity.

If any of you is specialized in LiPo (with I am not), I’d be glad to hear your comments too !
 
After I bought a new Extended, 2 months, 36 flights/6 hours ago, I only do this:

On the day: charge batteries to full;
Within few hours, fly 3 missions; one with each battery to about 50% after which the batteries are stored at 50% until the next missions, which can be one or two weeks apart.

I am pretty sure this is the ultimate way to take care of the batteries, without needing to charge them after a flight for storage to 40-60
 
I do know that Parrot are STILL working and analysing the data from the battery to improve the way the Anafi handles the information, and ultimately to give us the best flying experience.

I did mention to them, the setup that is in DJI Go 4 where you can monitor the cells, and although not currently on their development map, once they are happy about the battery data and getting it working efficiently, the graphical battery information may be something they implement.

But its good to know that they accept that the way the battery and Anafi operate together, are not currently at their best.

I would further guess that having now brought out a $7k Commercial/Military device, that in essence will be using FF6, then correct battery management and use is going to be critical. Its another element that could kill the whole project off if it doesn't work how it should.
 

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